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Maeshowe and the winter solstice: ceremonial aspects of the Orkney Grooved Ware culture

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Euan W. MacKie
Euan W. MacKie*
Affiliation:
Hunterian Museum & Art Gallery, University of Glasgow, University Avenue. Glasgow G12 8QQ, Scotland. E.W.MacKie@museum.gla.ac.uk
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Extract

A generation ago, enquiries into the astronomical and mathematical knowledge of the standing stone-erectors of prehistoric Britain dealt largely with statistical patterns. Since then, the great passage grave at Newgrange, eastern Ireland, has proved to be engineered to address the midwinter sunrise. It is time once more to look at another great chamber tomb, Maeshowe in northernmost Scotland, with these concerns in mind.

Type
Papers
Information
Antiquity , Volume 71 , Issue 272 , June 1997 , pp. 338 - 359
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 1997

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